The first step in creating a car is determining the vehicle type. This will focus the design in a specific direction based on the vehicle’s purpose. Usually, car manufacturers conduct market research before making this decision, but that does not apply to this project. Thus, I immediately decided to make a high performance car.
Pencil finally hits paper in the Design and Package Ideation stage. This involves only a handful of elements, drawn in broad strokes. Here are the steps I followed in this process:
- Set up driver’s height and posture.
- Select and install the powertrain
- Create cargo space
- Size and position the (primary) driven wheels
- Establish the wheelbase
- Create the body and interior trim sections
After brushing up on my AutoCAD skills, I developed the following initial package sketch.
The package is only about 8” long because, ultimately, I must be able to 3D print it.
With this initial design completed, I am now ready to add more detail to my car.
It looks good so far. Did you develop the scale of the car yet? How does that size compare to similar cars? Who’s motor were you thinking of using?
ReplyDeleteThanks! There are several factors that I have to sort out before I can decide on a scale factor. First of all, I need to find out what the maximum size is for the 3D printer at CREATE, which is a major constraint for my model. It might be possible to print the car in segments, but I am not sure. I also need to set up the dimensions, for which I will have to do some benchmarking with vehicles in the same class, such as the Bugatti Veyron and Koenigsegg Agera R. This works especially well because these "hypercars" all have a mid-rear engine and architecture designed for minimum aerodynamic drag, like my model will. Once the dimensions are set in stone for my own car, I can determine a scale factor that works with the 3D printer. For the motor, I will likely take the dimensions of one of these super cars' engines and "reserve" that volume (to scale) in my model to be as realistic as possible.
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